


When I Fell Into the Sea

by SkartoArgento



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Black Light - James Swallow, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: Angst, Character Death, M/M, Probably OOC let's face it., Vigilantism, hey everyone it's EMO O CLOCK
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:54:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26452933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkartoArgento/pseuds/SkartoArgento
Summary: Adam gets called back to Detroit with some bad news.
Relationships: Adam Jensen/Francis Pritchard
Comments: 9
Kudos: 40





	When I Fell Into the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> I'm having a lot of problems with insomnia right now, so I've been trying to be productive. Here's the result of no sleep and a lot of sad, sad music.

-

Sarif's voice, low and hollow through his infolink, woke Adam from a fuzzy half-sleep. 

He'd gritted his teeth, prepared to growl that no-one – _no-one_ – pinged his infolink in the middle of the night, and stopped at Sarif’s whisper. Numbness crept into his limbs. He lay on his back, the ceiling fan's thrum lost in the rush of blood that thundered through his head. Red triangles and beeps of alarm from his health implant. Increase in blood pressure, heart rate, adrenaline. Something cold and gaping slithered through his stomach and up to his throat. 

Sarif’s words, clipped in grief, faded when he said nothing. 

_A trap, a trick, a goddamn sick joke –_

Denial was an easy route. A safe road to walk down. The brain protected itself from itself. 

_Come home,_ Sarif said into the silence. He would be slumped in the light of huge screens, a marionette with all the strings cut. _Come home, Adam._

The infolink channel severed. Left him alone. 

Two minutes to dress, floating through a fog. Two minutes to gather up all his papers, scattered across the floor. One minute to steady himself against the door of his apartment when the earth tilted. 

\- 

Miller pinged his infolink on the plane ride back to Detroit. Nearly ten AM in Prague. Late for work. 

He switched all channels off, went back to staring at black ink of the Atlantic. 

\- 

Police tape criss-crossed the ruined doorway. Behind, someone had stuck a chunk of plywood in the place of the door. No chance for the nosy neighbours to gawk at the chaos inside. 

When he yanked the tape away, the _unreality_ crept up from nowhere, struck with the depersonalised force of a fever. Adrenaline still pumped, but from very far away. He watched, as though through a screen, as his hand came up and pulled the plywood board to the side. 

Gunpowder. Blood. The familiar smells. 

And so _cold._

_Do you want to see, do you REALLY want to see_

He couldn't place the voice in his head, with its strained and lilting tone. It stopped him before he stepped through the doorway. Tape stuck to his fingers. Somewhere, faintly, one of the neighbours was singing in a high croon that went on and on and on _._

_No. But I have to._

No one protested. He moved forward into the room. 

The couch had suffered the first death, overturned with bullet holes in the white faux-leather upholstery. He floated around it, hand running over the holes like a blind man trying to make sense of gibberish Braille. Drops of blood here and there. Then smears. Then a handprint, a rusted red against the white. 

_This is where it happened, right here, RIGHT HERE_

His breath was an ugly, ragged intake. 

Jags of glass opened every window to the air. Behind a few, the same plywood boards as the doorway, but others opened up to a view of the river, as though whoever was in charge of securing the scene gave up halfway through. Why bother? Just one more street-crime of many that happened yesterday in the dangerous part of town. DPD would have bigger fish to fry, unless Sarif – 

_Did you clear the area for me, David? Did you know I'd come straight here?_

The answer was probably yes, and the wave of gratitude came helplessly. Sarif would have wanted to see him, yearned to, after all this time, but kept a respectful distance. David Sarif might have been a lot of things, but a monster wasn't one. Not on his good days, at least. 

Broken computer remains littered the floor like the aftermath of a car crash. The main chunk of the machine itself had been thrown towards the open kitchen area, and the screen, all the way on the other side of the room, towards a short hallway, bisected by another bullet hole. And all around on the walls, the small still-upright tables, between the wounds of violence – signs of living, of home. A gaming poster by a small TV. Fridge magnets in the kitchen. A small potted plant, healthy and flushed green. _Little Things,_ Megan would have called them. Tiny bits of personality on display. 

He closed his eyes against the sting. 

Drops of blood led to the kitchen area. Spots in the sink, another handprint on the counter. Spilled coffee dried to a sticky brown stain that stretched to the floor. The mug, miraculous in its wholeness, had been a Sarif Industries corporate Christmas gift from four years ago. A smiling snowman on a red background, the SI logo on the other side. His had been a flying reindeer. No idea what happened to it. Probably sold with the rest of his things, or thrown in the trash like a – 

Red, smeared down half the kitchen floor. A dry pool where the drawers and cabinets closed together. 

_Right here_

Scuffed shoe imprints. The seep under the board. Thin lines where blood-soaked hair had swiped the cabinets behind. He crouched down, and the images came – _flailing there, hand over his chest, panting and_ _panting against the crawling cold, the edges of the world darkening, all the lights and controls switching off, dying in the kitchen, dying all alone –_

A thick sound left his throat. He steadied himself against the drawers, hand bending the metal handle. Nausea built to a roil in the pit of his stomach. 

“Sorry.” The word was too loud in the shattered apartment. “I would've helped if you called me. You knew that, right?” 

Wind groaned around the glass shards in the window panes. Nothing else answered, not the memory lying in the blood puddle, or a snide hiss through his infolink. Silence: familiar as the smell of gunpowder and blood. 

When he stood, the world rocked, churned; a turbulent ocean, and he alone on a fragile raft of sanity. He crossed the living area, stepped over the two halves of the computer screen to the hall. On the right a bathroom, more Little Things shaped as a plastic action figure from one of the _Final_ _Fantasy_ s balanced on the sink, a _Tech Today_ magazine on the floor, a shower mat printed like a keyboard. A goofy print of cartoon narwhals swam at the top of the egg-blue walls. 

His own face stared at him from the mirror over the sink. Chased him from the room. 

The bedroom rivalled the ones in the Chiron building. Long, compared to the rest of the apartment, the single bed squeezed into a corner. Desks lined the walls, nine old-style monitors blank and dead. No signs of the PCs themselves, DPD would have seized them immediately for evidence. Probably lots of interesting things for them to sift through there – if they could crack lavawalls and eternity codes. 

Wires criss-crossed the wooden floorboards. No stink of guns and blood in here. Just something else familiar – old, but familiar – woody aftershave blurred with the fractious _hot_ smell of sparked electronics. And so much stronger, so much more closer on the bed. 

His fingertips found the thin pillow. Cold, but not long ago, maybe forty-eight hours, it would have been warm. 

Forty-eight hours ago he could have been here, stopped the blood from spilling, the guns from firing. 

The photograph caught his eye. On the shelf by the bed, front and center, its colourful explosion juxtaposed against scatters of papers, gaps of missing files. He took it down, the black metal frame between his fingers. 

Air punched from his lungs. 

All of them, together. Christmas at SI. Sarif in the middle, mouth frozen in an uproarious laugh, drunk (if he remembered), one arm around his own shoulders. And him, eyes blue instead of green and yellow, no augmented lenses, an uncertain smile at his new boss's mood. Megan next to him, dazzled by the camera, but... happy. 

And under Sarif's other arm, scowling in no serious way, tinsel wrapped into a wreath on top of his head – 

“Jensen.” 

Shock weakened his grip on the photograph, but _relief_ flooded it out, kept his fingers strong. He took a breath, silent and deep, gave himself a moment with his back to the room. The photograph found its place back on the shelf. He snorted out loud, let the derisive chuckle mask the clench in his chest. 

“Should've known.” He crossed his arms, let his eye shields retract as he turned around. “Can't ever get rid of you, can I Francis –” 

The hologram recording stared to a spot slightly left of him, purple mesh flickering every few seconds across Pritchard's form. A sad smile curled its lips up. 

Another punch of air – 

_No_

Grief so sharp and so _hard_ – 

_I thought you_

His eyes squeezed shut. The world became an ocean again, and the twine of his raft frayed, threatened to break apart. And once it broke, he broke, smashed into pieces that could never be put back together. 

A fizzle of static, and the hologram – _Pritchard_ – blinked, fidgeted on the spot. He took another breath, forced a word out through the lump in his throat. “Francis?” 

“Jensen. If you're seeing this recording, it means the DNA scanner in this room has identified you and hasn't been stolen, or confiscated by your old DPD co-workers.” Pritchard sighed, head tilting down towards the floor. “It also likely means that someone has... caught up with me.” 

His knees folded, ass on the floor and back against the shelf. “Yeah. They sure did.” 

“And if that's the case, I hope I at least went down fighting.” Another smile, self-deprecating. 

“Me too.” _I ho_ _pe you went down like one of the big cats, a death-snarl on your lips, furious at the world. I hope you gave them hell before that final shot._

Pritchard's hologram paced to the left, arms folded. He stood up from the floor and moved in front of it. His fingers slipped into the shards of light. A sharp cheek glinted, fizzed where his hand touched. Grey eyes stared through his own, bruised by lack of sleep. “Never did take my advice to cut out the caffeine pills, huh?” 

“Sarif probably got in touch with you. He owes me, so I made sure that if anything happened, he'd set things in motion. There's hidden cameras in this apartment, and he'll have the tapes. I can't be sure that my... visitors aren't corrupt cops. You know how _that_ works, Jensen.” 

No wonder Sarif looked so damn shaken up. 

Pritchard tugged the tie of his ponytail, something that brought back memories of those days they'd antagonise each other at Sarif Industries. After they got to know each other a little better, figured out where the boundaries lay, he'd try and twist Pritchard's tie tighter, earn himself a mock scowl and a slap of his hands. 

“If you want passwords to my machines, assuming you find them, it's your old password. From back at Sarif Industries.” 

Mandrake. When he'd asked why, a lifetime ago, an eyebrow raised in his direction. _Poisonous._

And whoever killed Pritchard would find out just how poisonous he could be. 

“And assuming my body is intact, or even found –” the bluntness clenched his stomach, “ – funeral arrangements are up to you, Jensen. Cremation, burial. Tipped into the river, whatever you like. It doesn't matter to me.” Another smile from Pritchard. “I won't be voicing any complaints.” 

“God _damn_ it.” His whisper came furious, tear-streaked. “Couldn't you have taken this seriously, Pritchard? The hell am I supposed to –” 

“Just... make sure Shadowchild knows. I don't want her to find out any other way.” 

If he could get hold of her again. 

“Take whatever you want from this apartment.” All the Little Things, their owner cold in the DPD morgue. “And... thank you, Jensen.” Now Pritchard's hologram faced him directly. Purple flashed the clench of eyes, the furrow of brow. Pain there. His hand sank through the light of Pritchard's arm. “For helping me with the Palisade Blade. The DRB. The... Rialto.” 

The Rialto. On the roof, their shoulders touching while they surveyed Detroit's decay. And what followed. What they’d done in the dark. 

“As for everything else... As for you... I... Well. I don't think I have to say it, do I, Jensen?” Pritchard straightened, but eyes found the floor again, searching for more words, searching – 

Purple lines disintegrated, unravelled. Light dimmed to nothing. 

Dust motes speckled under the dirty LED bulb. 

Silence swallowed the world. 

The apartment slipped out of focus. Something dark and hollow strangled what little light remained in his mind. 

“No.” The words splintered between his teeth. “You don't have to say it.” 

\- 

The old work route was fenced with barbed wire, and in the rain the spikes glimmered, slick as the asphalt in the grey light of early-morning. Commuters drudged the sidewalks and pretended not to notice his hands, or his eye shields. They flowed around him like water around a stone. 

Sarif Industries had a new face – the cold gleam of _Tai Yong Medical_ over the lobby entrance – but it was plastic surgery on a corpse. New guards stood at the new gate. A drone threatened with furious beeps, an oversized dragonfly with red eyes, and the human elements kept their hands tight on shiny black guns, but he passed with no comment. 

_The last time we were here_

Sarif through the infolink, voice tight and knowing: _I'm sorry, son._

_The last time we were here you_

He made it to a nearby alley before his legs collapsed, spilled him to his knees. 

Yellowed newspapers blurred under his hands. The whine returned, desperate and painful. He fell into the horrible and wonderful emptiness of _unthinking._ An empty peace, just for a few moments. Just to keep everything from snapping. 

Wet brick pulled him back. Cold against his cheek, his forehead. The ground stabilised. 

_Bastard. Bastard. Don’t make me do this alone._

_“Adam?”_

Sarif, as gentle as he’d ever heard, coaxing him like a stray dog. 

“Who were they?” He tried to keep the snarl out, but it tangled in his throat. “Who were they, David?” 

_“DPD thinks one of the local gangs. Frank – he, uh, had some run-ins with them. They liked using him to crack into high-profile accounts. At_ _least, that’s what he told me.”_ Sarif’s voice had that considered tone that could only come with several good drinks. If only he could share that medicine. _“Guess he got tired of it and told them no. Wish he’d come to me instead.”_

One of the gangs. He’d find out which particular one. 

Sarif’s throat cleared through his infolink. _“Frank... Jesus, I can’t believe... Adam, will you come and see me, son? We can work this out together-”_

“No.” Anger was easier. Better to burn up in it than drown again. 

_“Okay, Adam. Okay. So, what exactly are you planning to do?”_

Nanoblades slid from his wrists with a faint impulse trigger. The world seemed a lot clearer with them out. “Ask some questions.” 

\- 

He spread blood across the bones of Detroit. Answers to his questions reverberated in his skull, screamed into the night by hunted men.

A gang, and then a team, and then a few. Then two. 

The last one he chased to the top of a gutted office block. Dawn broke as they stood across from each other on the roof. The leader, the one who ordered the hit, faced him with a cringing dog-like fear and an empty gun. 

_He was dead anyway, man, you_ _gotta_ _believe me – the Purists were_ _gonna_ _get him, they knew who he worked for -_

His hand squeezed the soft, still-bleating throat. No icy grip of guilt or pity, no memories of those _to-serve-and-protect_ academy days. 

_Please don’t, please don’t -_

And the sun broke the horizon and spilled light across the city. 

He held out the man to dangle over the void between sky and concrete. The pleading turned to a wordless shriek - the sound of an animal caught in a snare. 

In his mind, Pritchard’s hair slipped through his fingers. Lips touched the side of his throat. A voice, trembling, told him how much he’d been missed. 

He opened his hand. Gravity did the rest. 

Flesh slapped against the sidewalk. Another scream, this time thin and feminine, reached his perch. No joy came in the finality of it all. No satisfaction. Even the anger had burned out and left a cold, empty space. 

Below, Detroit fractured into a maze of dead, dark streets and dead, dark buildings. No longer his home. Nothing left for him here. 

_I should have said it. Told him. Told him a million times._

He sat there on the roof while the sun rose higher, and whispered it to the dead, again and again. 


End file.
